diary week 1

we booked a flight from germanwings.com. that's why, we had to fly over cologne. in zurich, we first had to find a pack for our bikes. it was not that easy. finally, we bought it from swissport, the groundhandling partner in switzerland. after packing the bikes, we had to check-in. it seems, that not many people take their bikes on a plane, because nobody really knows where to buy the pack for the bike. while packing, we had many spectators. our flight went about 8:40 am.

on about 10 am, we arrived in cologne. we had to get our luggage...first the bags of chris came along the assembly-line...then one of my bags...then we waited...and waited...the suddenly we were the only ones waiting. i went to the package loss service counter and told them, that i'm missing one of my bags and the tent. the friendly women made a call and after some minutes a man came with my bag in his hands. they told us, that this the last package from this flight. that means, they lost our tent!!! after about three hours waiting and dragging our bikes through the airport, our second flight went on about 2 pm. on 4 pm, we arrived in oslo. we were already tired from the flight. we were lucky, that the rest of our luggage was not lost. we had to make our bikes ready, to pack them and to find a place, where we can spend the night (remember: they lost our tent). so we searched for a hotel. what we have found is the gardermoen bed & breakfast. they gave us a relly ugly room in the basement...and that for much money! so here the first advice: don't rest at gardermoen bed & breakfast! (costs: 960 nok) i have mady some calls to germanwings and swissport concerning our tent. they told us, that if the tent was found, it will be brought to oslo by a flight tomorrow...
 

the first day on our bikes in norway. on the road from maura to grua, were two long tunnels. luckily, the road went down and we were not that long inside. on the road 35 from jevnaker to hønefoss was much traffic. maybe you should try to find a better way. in hønefoss, we have found a very nice hostel. there's only one, so you will find it (costs: 530 nok). i made some calls again and they told us, our tent was not found yet. so, we decided to buy a new one here tomorrow. the insurance must pay it back, after our holidays. in the evening we went out to eat something. we have found a very nice american style restaurant. i can't remember the name...
 

we left the hostel on about 8 am. we went to the sport shop and bought our new tent: basecamp nordkapp III (costs: 1500 nok). the tent has enough space and it's very easy.



we have not seen that there is a bridge from noresund to norefjell. so we took all the way down to krøderen and from there to norefjell. we arrived in norefjell on about 5:30 pm. this was the first night in the tent. we found a very nice place, directly at the lake.
 

a hard day...only 40 km's, but about 2500 m's difference in height. from norefjell, we drove up to eggedal, where we took our lunch. the weather was not that fine this day. but til then it did not rain.

on about 5 pm, we arrived in sloko at the small lake slokovatnet. sloko is an accumulation of some tourist huts, not a village. we had some problems to find a place for our tent. and it suddenly started to rain. that's why, we had to hurry. it rained the rest of the day with only one small break. even then we had not enough time to prepare our dinner. in the night, it rained still. i woke up in the night because of the rain. i saw some drops on the inner tent...WHAT FRIGHTEN!!! from this moment on, i wasn't able to sleep again. after some time, chris woke up too.
 

even in the morning, it was raining...we had to fight against the rain inside of our tent...we shaked the drops carefull away, without touching the outer tent. later, we decided to go further. it still rained and we had to pack our tent and our things. this day, we had one long downhill, offroad. that means, we got very wet and dirty.

we arrived in rødberg and found the only hotel (what a wonder...). there we tried to hang up everything we had, to dry it. it rained all the day and still in the night. but the weather forecast for the next day was good.
 

from the rødberg hotel, we went to heggelie. to reach heggelie, we had to drive 700 m's difference in height up. we drove along the lake tunhovdfjorden. on this way, we had to stop, because the back tire of chris' bike was flat. we had to repair it and took the lunch. in skogli, we had to change on the road 40. there were again about 300 m to get up, before geilo.

in geilo, we went on the camping place. when we prepared the dinner, our neighbour came to talk with us. his name was eric and he came from paris (france). he was travelling alone by train through some european countries. after the dinner, we went to the lake for fishing. eric came with us. eric, chris and i did never fish before. and even then: eric showed us the basics! funny isn't it? at the end of this day, we were lucky, that it did not rain and we have learned how to through out the fishing line. We have not catched anything.
 

we left geilo on about 11:30. we went (on road 7) to ustaoset and haugastøl. haugastøl is on about 1000 m's over the sea. exactly when we arrived there, it started to rain. we waited a long time, that it stops. but it did not. we decided to stay in the hostel there. the hostel is very good and cheap. they even have a dry room for the bikers.

in haugastøl starts the famous rallarvegen! that's why really many tourists were there. and all with the bikes!! from this moment on, we were not the only bikers :-)
 

on 9 am, we entered the rallarvegen. we went to finse and had lunch on fagernut. the environment is alpine and the way offroad. it's very beautiful! we went about 3 km's away, to a nice camp place.

we had to buy some food. that's why, i went ahead to hallingskleid. the weather was a dream: a blue sky without clouds. biking (without luggage) is a sensation!!! (thanks to gary fisher, mr. ritchey and their friends).

we had time to make our tent waterproof. therefore, we bought the waterproofer in rødberg. we have seen many people on the rallarvegen. especially bikers! you can bring your own bike with you, or rent a bike at the beginning points of the rallarvegen (haugastøl). we have seen many glaciers along the way. the nature ist here on 1000 m's very similar to the swiss nature on about 2000 to 3000 m's!
 

we decided to stay for a day here, because it is really beatiful. i went back to finse for shopping. i wanted to buy food and beer. we did not know, that on sunday you cannot buy beer in norway! you can buy beer as follows:

monday to friday from 8 am to 8 pm
saturday until 6 pm

later we went to a lake for fishing. without success again...